


Brave New World (That Has Such Genders In It)

by within_a_dream



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Marius
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marius meets a new friend at a GSA meeting, and makes a decision that will change her life for better and for worse.</p><p>Based on <a href="http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/14280.html?thread=14523080">this kink meme prompt</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to post this completely on the kink meme before editing and posting here, but the new Livejournal captchas are killing me. If you've been reading on makinghugospin, there's no new material yet, nor is it much changed from the original posts, but there will be new chapters within the week.
> 
>  **Warnings** for transphobia/transmisogyny, and Gillenormand being an awful guardian, as well as background homophobia and other forms of gender or sexuality based bigotry.

Marius first met Courfeyrac at a GSA meeting. She hadn’t actually attended the meeting—it had taken all of her courage simply to stay after class. She’d arrived late, and hadn’t been able to bring herself to barge in, but it felt wrong to leave. So she leaned against the wall and waited.

Courfeyrac wasn’t the first to leave, but he _was_ the first to notice Marius. “Hey, are you Marius from 4 th-hour chemistry?”

Marius nodded. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you.”

“Courfeyrac. You waiting for someone?”

She looked away. “I meant to come to the meeting, but I…” Marius waved her hands, at a loss for words.

He smiled. “It can be scary. We can go together next week, if you’d like.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Courfeyrac grinned wider. “Do you need a ride home?”

She spent half the ride fidgeting in the passenger seat, trying to focus on anything but the way her heart was fluttering in her chest. Courfeyrac eventually took pity on her, and started up a conversation.

“Can I ask why you were at the meeting? You don’t have to tell me, of course, but I’d like…um, you probably already knew this, but I’m incredibly bisexual.” He laughed. “Sorry, there’s not really a non-awkward way to do this.”

She hadn’t known, actually. She’d barely known who he was until he’d spoken to her today. “Well, I think…I’m a girl.” She laughed nervously. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Is Marius still all right to use, or would you prefer something else?” Courfeyrac glanced up from the road to shoot her a smile.

“You know, I haven’t even thought about it. I’ve been hung up on what my grandfather’s going to think.” Her parents had given her the name Marius. It felt wrong to toss it off. “I think Marius will be fine for now. Oh, this is my street!”

Courfeyrac pulled to a stop at the end of the driveway. “Give me a second.” He fumbled in the backseat, pulling out a crumpled piece of notebook paper and scribbling something across it. “If your grandpa gives you too much trouble, this is where I live. You’re welcome any time.”

 

Her grandfather was waiting for her in the entryway. “You’re late. And who drove you home?”

“Courfeyrac, from one of my classes.” She’d had an excuse planned out, something about an urgent homework assignment, but right now, lying didn’t seem worth the trouble. “We met up at a GSA meeting.”

His frown was entirely too familiar. “I don’t think a boy like you belongs in a place like that.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about; I’m not. A boy, I mean. I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel like a girl.”

“What, like one of those transsexuals?”

Marius bit her lip, praying she was misinterpreting the disgust in his voice. “I know it seems strange, Grandfather, but I’m still your Marius—”

“Stop this nonsense!” His shout made her flinch, but the way his voice went stone-cold next was even worse. “Your father would be ashamed to see his son acting like this.”

_His son_. The words wrenched through her. Her grandfather knew her father better than she did, after all—she’d been so young when he died. Maybe he _would_ hate her. It didn’t change how sick she felt at the thought of people thinking of her as a man, but it did break the last reserve that had been keeping her from crying. “That doesn’t change who I am, Grandfather.”

“Either come to your senses, or get out of my house.”

“All right.” Marius shoved past him. “I’ll pack my bags now.”

His expression suggested he’d expected Marius to give in rather than take him at his word, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She threw together a duffel bag: textbooks, laptop, only a few clothes (her grandfather had vetted everything in her wardrobe, and she didn’t want to spend another day wearing collared shirts and baggy men’s jeans.) Then she grabbed her bike, pulled up the GPS on her phone, and started biking towards Courfeyrac’s.

 

It was a longer ride than she’d expected, taking her out of the suburbs and into the city. Her phone beeped at a short house sandwiched in-between two massive office complexes. A faded rainbow mural emblazoned the dirty gray wall. Marius leaned her bike against a nearby railing, locked it in place, screwed up her courage, and knocked on the door.

Marius didn’t recognize the person who answered. The fluorescent light from inside made their shaved head and smudged eye-shadow glisten. “Hey. Are you looking for someone, or…?”

“Courfeyrac gave me this address? He said I could come here if I needed a place to stay? And I don’t really have a place to sleep tonight, my grandfather kicked me out, so I was hoping I could talk with him.” The words spilled out in a rush, but they seemed to understand what she was saying.

“I’ll go wake him up. Why don’t you come inside?”

Marius set her bag down in the hallway, and leaned nervously against the wall. She fiddled with her phone, watching the seconds tick by, until Courfeyrac came bounding down the stairs.

“Hey, Marius! Is everything all right?”

“Um, I need…I mean, I’ve come to sleep with you—oh no, that was weird, I’m…” She started crying, and Courfeyrac drew her into a hug, not laughing at her even a little bit.

“Okay, take a deep breath, it’s all right. Did something happen with your grandpa?”

“He wanted to know why I stayed late at school, and I told him. He didn’t take it well. And I can’t go back there, so now I’m here, and I don’t have to stay forever, but I don’t have anywhere else to go tonight—”

“It’s all right.” He put a hand on her arm. “We can talk plans tomorrow. Tonight, why don’t we go to bed? You look tired, and it must have taken you forever to get here.”


	2. Chapter 2

When she woke up, the sun was already shining through Courfeyrac’s window onto her hastily-assembled bed on the floor. She scrambled to her feet, looking around for clothes and trying to figure out how in the world she would get to school from here.

“Marius?” Courfeyrac was still on his bed, fiddling with his phone.

“We’re going to be late!”

“Oh, we’re not going to school today. Not after the night you’ve just had. I had Monsieur Valjean call us in sick, and I thought I’d introduce you to the other residents.”

Other residents. That was an odd way to call someone your roommate. “This isn’t your family’s home, then?”

Courfeyrac’s mouth curved up into an uncomfortable sort of grin. “I didn’t tell you? I haven’t spoken to my parents for months. This is an offshoot of the LGBT support center in the city, meant to give a home to at-risk youth. Jean Valjean is in charge here; you’ll meet him soon enough, as we have to talk to him today about finding you a room.”

“What if he decides I don’t belong?” Courfeyrac looked befuddled at her question. “I’m serious! I ran off after an argument with my grandfather—he’s never hit me, he’s never been intentionally cruel. I don’t belong here.”

“Marius, he refused to acknowledge your gender. If nothing else, that merits a bit of a break from each other.” He took her hand. “You deserve to be here just as much as I do. Now you should get dressed.”

After Courfeyrac left the room, Marius hesitated, then began to fish through her suitcase. Crumpled at the bottom, under the basketball shorts and baggy t-shirts she’d packed out of necessity, was the skirt she’d bought last month. It was pink, with flowers, and she wasn’t even sure if it fit, as she’d been too frightened to try it on. The prospect of wearing it terrified her, but if she wasn’t safe here, then where?

It sat a little tight around her waist, but manageably so. She hadn’t even thought about the rest of the outfit—hopefully her shirt matched it at least a little. She stepped out the door, heart in her throat, and Courfeyrac smiled.

“You look cute. Is that a new skirt?”

She grinned and nodded, and Courfeyrac led her down the hall.

 

Monsieur Valjean had greying hair and a kind smile. “Ah, Marius! Courfeyrac’s told me about you. I’m pleased to meet you, although I wish it had been under more pleasant circumstances.”

She took his hand, shaking it weakly. “He said there’s a chance I can stay here? I don’t have any way to pay rent…”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. We have a spare room, across the hall from Courfeyrac’s, that you’re welcome to take.”

She frowned. “I’ll have to tell my grandfather where I’ve gone.”

“If you’d prefer, I can call him.”

It would be wonderful to avoid speaking with him. The thought of her last conversation with him, the disgust in his voice, made her sick. But she knew that it would be hard enough to convince him of the finality of her actions if she gave word herself, and that he would _never_ accept this if she let a stranger tell him the news. “I think I should tell him myself.”

He nodded. “I can show you to your room. We’re having a group dinner tonight if you’d like to meet everyone; until then, feel free to make yourself at home.”

 

She unpacked her duffel and spent the next hour rearranging the room to avoid calling her grandfather. You’d think there were only so many ways a person could hang clothes in a closet, but Marius could have kept going all night had a knock on the door not stopped her.

“Dinner’s in half an hour,” Courfeyrac said. “You all right?”

Marius smiled tightly. “I need to call my grandfather. For all he knows, I’m dead in the street somewhere.” If she said it out loud, she’d have to do it.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Don’t let him get to you.”

Her fingers pressed the numbers almost unconsciously, and she sat through the rings, imagining how he’d sound. No matter how worried he was, she promised herself, she wouldn’t cave. Courfeyrac was right—she deserved to be here, and he was an ass.

When he answered, he only sounded annoyed. “Are you ready to stop this game and let me pick you up? You don’t want a truancy on your record.”

“That’s why I’m calling.” She hated the way her voice trembled. “I’m moving out. You have my cell number if you need to contact me.”

“Call me when you’ve decided to admit how ridiculous this tantrum is,” he snapped, and hung up.

She’d expected to be upset, but she just felt empty. Well, then. That was that. Her grandfather would call in a month when he realized he missed her, or he’d never speak to her again, and right now she couldn’t care less which path he chose.

 

There was a bigger crowd than she’d expected at dinner that night, and she felt uncomfortably scrutinized when giving her introduction (as prompted by Courfeyrac). “Hey, I’m Marius, she/her pronouns, and um, my grandfather kicked me out last night so now I’m here?”

Courfeyrac squeezed her hand and said, “You know who I am already.”

She learned that the one who’d answered the door was Bossuet, and their boyfriend Joly and girlfriend Musichetta both lived in the house as well. There was a scruffy, sardonic boy named Grantaire, an intimidatingly muscular boy named Bahorel with a sweatshirt so red it hurt Marius’s eyes to look at it, and a striking blond boy named Enjolras. Combeferre she recognized from her calc class. Éponine (“still deciding, but she’s fine for now”) had two younger siblings, Gavroche and Azelma, with her. Jehan introduced himself so quietly that Marius nearly had to ask him to repeat his name. At Monsieur Valjean’s side was his daughter Cosette.

Mercifully, none of them asked Marius about her grandfather. Instead, they talked about the house—Saturday nights were movie nights, although it was Jehan’s turn to choose the film, which apparently spelled disaster.

“I just think you need some culture,” Jehan said.

Bahorel scoffed. “The last thing any of us needed was two and a half hours of black-and-white French people.”

“It was better than _your_ last choice.”

“Excuse you, _Manos: The Hands of Fate_ is a fucking masterpiece!”

“Language,” Valjean said softly, directing a meaningful glance towards Gavroche.

Bahorel grinned. “Sorry, man. I gotta defend true art, you know?” Valjean laughed at that, shaking his head.

Marius smiled. Movie night. She looked forward to that.


	3. Chapter 3

The house was busy on weekends, she learned. Combeferre brought their homework (“I thought you’d have enough to worry about without stressing out over what you missed,” he said), but she didn’t have time to work on it with all the introductions. The first to approach her was Grantaire, who plopped down on the other side of the couch she was using to study Saturday morning, gave her a sidelong glance, and asked, “So, what’re you in for?”

“Hmm?”

Grantaire laughed, but it came out more cynical than humorous. “No one ends up at Rainbow Road without a shitty story to tell. Take me—I’m into dudes, and my parents are homophobic assholes. Éponine’s parents are equal-opportunity assholes—couldn’t care less about her gender, but if she and her siblings stay at home there’ll be all sorts of trouble, so she’s here. What about you?”

Marius scratched at her wrist, trying to figure out what to say. “Well. I’m a girl, my grandfather’s a dick, and I’m not going back to him until he starts using my pronouns.”

Grantaire swung out his arm for a high five. “He’ll come around. And if he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve you.”

“So you’re gay?” Marius realized what a stupid question that was as soon as she asked it, but she didn’t want to mess this up.

“Nah, bi.” He smiled at her, and she sighed in relief. Not too wrong of a question after all. “Cute guys, cute girls, whoever—doesn’t matter to me, as long as they’re interested.” He winked at her, and she couldn’t keep the blush from her face. Her grandfather had teased her about her quickness to blush, saying a young man had no need to be so embarrassed of the facts of life. He’d push her towards girls from her classes, making comments that made her sick to her stomach. This was new, the chance to flirt without his shadow over her shoulder, to smile at this boy with a crooked nose and shaggy curls and say, “Well…I might be interested?”

Oh, no. That barely qualified as flirting. But Grantaire leaned a bit closer and said, “Let me know if you decide.”

“R, are you terrorizing our new resident?” The voice from behind her made Marius jump, and spin around to see the somewhat terrifying blond boy.

“Just showing her the Rainbow Road ropes,” Grantaire said, his grin a bit sharper than it had been with Marius.

“I told you, you can’t name our home after a Mario Kart level.”

He smiled again. “It’s the will of the people, Enjolras! Would you go against popular opinion, enforce your own view like a dictator, all because you have your sense of humor shoved so far up your ass that it would take surgery to return your ability to laugh—”

Enjolras cut Grantaire off with a wave of his hand, and to Marius’s surprise, he actually shut up. “Feel free to ignore Grantaire, Marius; the rest of us do.”

Grantaire let out a sharp laugh at that. “And feel free to ignore Enjolras as well; his bark is worse than his bite, but when your bark can kill, you don’t have much use for teeth.”

No sound had ever made Marius happier than hearing Courfeyrac say, “Don’t scare the new girl with your bickering!”

“Thank you,” she mouthed at him.

“I hope I didn’t upset you, Marius.” Enjolras’s smile was less comforting than it should have been.

“What’s a little bickering between friends?” Grantaire said, grinning the same jagged-edged grin.

Courfeyrac sighed. “They do this all the time. You’ll get used to it.”

The rest of the residents weren’t nearly as intimidating. Bahorel pulled him aside later that morning to tell him, “My parents were assholes when I came out, too. They never came around, but maybe yours will.” Combeferre offered help with her chemistry homework, and although Marius didn’t know him well, she could hear the concern behind the calm. Musichetta offered her clothes: “My skirts might be a bit long on you, but our waists are about the same.” Éponine—well, Éponine was a bit frightening. She hardly ever looked at Marius, and when she did, it was with this sharp smile that didn’t look happy in the slightest. But she seemed to treat the rest of the residents the same way, so Marius didn’t take it personally.

She was happy here. It scared her a bit to think that, like if she admitted she was content, it would be wrenched away from her. But this was a good place. She grew less nervous around the other residents, and she stopped keeping her phone next to her every minute, waiting for her grandfather to call.

But she never stopped imagining that call. She knew he wouldn’t, but God, she wished her grandfather would change his mind. _Change his mind_ …that seemed too petty a phrase. Besides that, her grandfather never changed his mind. Still, she spent more time than was healthy thinking of him calling her up, telling her that he’d been wrong about her.

“I did some reading,” he said sometimes, or, “I’ve talked to a friend.” (The idea that he had any friends less transphobic than him was laughable, of course, as was the idea of him seeking out articles on his own.) As her birthday drew closer, the daydreams grew more frequent, until she found herself sitting on Courfeyrac’s bed crying about it all.

“I don’t even know why I’m so upset! My birthday was always miserable with him anyway; he’d force me into a suit, take me out to some fancy restaurant, and we’d spend an hour staring at the tablecloth to avoid staring at each other. But it feels like he should at least acknowledge it.”

“Don’t worry about that old bastard,” Courfeyrac said. “We’ll make sure you have fun on your birthday this year.”

Marius assumed he’d forgotten, until she woke up the morning of her birthday to incredibly loud and off-key singing coming from the hall outside her room. When she opened the door, everyone was there, even Monsieur Valjean. After the group concluded on a passionate _you_ , Courfeyrac’s voice carried in a screeching falsetto above the others, Musichetta nudged her way forward.

“We’re going shopping,” she told Marius. “You, me, and Cosette. A girl’s day out.”

“Only if you want to!” Cosette added.

Marius grinned. “Of course I do!”


End file.
